


Rewriting the Accounts of our Boarder Skirmishes

by thought



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phillipa unwittingly drags Arthur out of a certain river. Results appear promising.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewriting the Accounts of our Boarder Skirmishes

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for a bit of transphobia, cissexism, and binarism.  
> Many thanks to my fabulous beta [Toomanyhometowns](http://archiveofourown.org/users/toomanyhometowns) who betaed this on Skype purely, I suspect, so she could continuously inform me that 'Dom Cobb is an asshole'.

They wait 27 hours after Fisher to break every unwritten post-mission protocol in dreamshare and come together for a recklessly celebratory bottle of scotch, Eames and Arthur and Cobb on the floor around the coffee table in Cobb's LA house like they're back in uni, the children asleep in the next room while their grandparents enjoy an expensive dinner date on the other side of the city. The others have already left, vanished back into the concealing minutia of the everyday--cats and textbooks and board meetings holding the siren song of a danger that is at least safe in its familiarity.

Early on in the evening Cobb sets down his glass, places both hands on the table, palms down, and says "I'm out. After all of this-- I'm done with dreamsharing."

Eames laughs in his face.

Later, in the pins-and-needles stage between forced camaraderie and broken noses, Eames turns to Arthur, tucks an arm around his shoulders. Arthur stiffens up automatically. "What're you going to do then, pet?"

"In what regard?"

"Well, if Cobb here is going to go play happy families you'll find yourself rather at loose ends, won't you? You're very good, darling, but it's going to take a bit to get into the game on your own when it's taken as read that you belong to Cobb."

Cobb hunches in on himself. "Arthur doesn't belong to me, for fucks sake."

"Need to learn to watch your mouth with the kiddies around," Eames says, grin too wide.

Arthur thinks 'I can't breathe', and then, 'fuck you, Dom,' and then he gets up and goes into the bathroom and climbs out the tiny window once he's done throwing up.

It takes three and a half weeks for Cobb to track him down in Vancouver. He comes up behind Arthur where he's standing on the sea wall on English Bay and presses a hand against his shoulder blades.

"Why are you here, Dom?"

The older man huffs out a quietly defeated little laugh, and Arthur finally looks away from the ships and the waves to meet his downturned gaze, the self-deprecating twist of his lips. "I came to apologize for being a hurtful idiot. And I also came to bring you home."

It's clichéd and proprietary and not enough and Arthur feels every muscle in his body uncoil with such suddenness that if he were someone else he might have fallen. Instead he just nods, and carefully fits his fingers into Dom's. "Ok."

Arthur can not actually do domestic for more than three months at a time, and Eames warnings to the contrary it's not that difficult to find work when he wants it.

Cobb gets back into the business after exactly a year. Arthur sends Eames a bottle of that same scotch, hat metaphorically tipped.

All that being said, the important things are not the grand, meaningful moments. Because more than anything, more than oceans and scotch and inception there are farmers' markets and first days of school and burned pancakes and lost keys when they're already late. there is James learning to ride his bike and Miles receiving an honorary doctorate from a university in Spain and Dom pressing Arthur down into their bed and there is Phillipa, sitting in the chair at the hairdressers and telling the stylist in her prim little six-year-old tone that she would like a cut like the little blond boy on the poster across from her.

"Sweetheart," Dom says, still so careful, like he's scared his children are going to disappear, "You don't want your hair to look like a boy, do you?"

"Look at all this pretty hair," the stylist agrees with the fake enthusiasm that speaks of long days spent caught between the whims of parents and small children. Phillipa shakes her head, dislodging the stylist’s comb.

"I would like my hair like that, please," she says firmly, pointing at the poster.

"How about a bob?" the stylist offers, making a cupping motion around Phillipa's chin.

"That's a pretty big decision," Cobb tries again. "Maybe next time, once you've had some time to think about it, ok?"

Phillipa smiles. "I've thought about it for eleven days. And it'll grow back in sixteen months if I don't like it. I asked Mamie how long an inch is, and on CSI they say that hair grows half of an inch every month, which means one inch each two months, which means eight two-months, which means sixteen. That's not so long, daddy. Not even as long as your business trip."

Arthur can feel his stupid proud grin forcing it's way onto his face despite his best efforts to fade into the background. Phillipa is resourceful and obviously observant, if she's learned how to copy Arthur's method of getting what he wants-- that being 'keep calm and make everyone else look ridiculous for not agreeing with you.' Cobb is staring around helplessly, while James and the stylist both show increasing signs of impatience. Arthur catches Phillipa's eyes and winks. She inclines her head a bit in a gesture of acknowledgement which she must've learned from a favourite film or television character, because no six-year-old should be able to pull off that level of subtlety.

"Ok," Cob says finally. "But once it's done it's done, Phil. Sixteen months is a long time."

"I know," she replies, and Arthur sees the moment Cobb makes the connection between this calm confirmation and the earlier business trip comment. His resistance flakes away onto the floor in shards of self-loathing and guilt, mixing with Phillipa's fine locks as the stylist starts to snip.

A month later, she comes down the stairs into the kitchen hauling a garbage bag behind her, face determined. Cobb takes a breath and Arthur turns down the heat on the pasta sauce.

"I got some stuffed animals that I want to give to the kids at the hospital," Phillipa announces breezily. "I got lots of teddies and dogs from people when Maman died and I never play with them, 'cause they've all got fancy dresses and bows and one lady said I could cuddle them at night but the lace is scratchy, and I think it was rude of her to say that a bear would be like maman."

Cob relaxes and goes down on one knee to get closer to Phillipa's height. "That's a really good idea," he tells her seriously. "I think the kids at the hospital will like to have toys very much, and I'm really proud of you for coming up with it all on your own."

Arthur waits for the other shoe to drop, because for someone who is so devoted to both his children Cobb is really laughably terrible at recognizing when they're trying to hide something. Phillipa smiles, and shoves the bag into the corner. "And I put some old clothes I don't wear anymore in there, too, for the Salvation Army."

"We don't give to Salvation Army, remember?" Arthur reminds her gently. “Good Will.”

"I thought you and mamie went through your clothes last time she was here?" Cobb asks.

Phillipa shrugs. "I grow fast."

Arthur walks over and starts rummaging through the bag. "These are all your nice dresses, Phil. You don’t want to give this away, some of it's practically brand new."

She shoves her hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt and turns away. "I don't want them. I gotta go call Emily, I promised I'd call at six fifteen."

"It's barely five," Cobb says sternly. "Why don't you want these clothes? There's nothing wrong with them."

She glares. "I don't like dresses anymore."

"Why not?" Cobb coaxes. Arthur is starting to get a sneaking suspicion he knows where this is going and he has to drop the pale blue sundress back into the bag and retreat to the other side of the island where he can brace his hands on the sink and try to will away the light-headedness that's hit him.

"I don't want them!" Phillipa yells in response to Dom's frustrated questioning.

"You don't want to look pretty?"

"Yes I do!" she shouts, the telltale hitch of a half-formed sob catching on the exclamation. "I just don't wanna look like a girl!"

Arthur shoves away from the counter, striding across the kitchen to the back door, because he is safe and home and not on the job and he is slowly learning that this means he's allowed to run away from a family argument to go sit in the rain and have a panic attack in peace if he damn well pleases.

This is how Phillipa's story starts.

Arthur's story started when he was nine years old and staying with another temporary foster home while his parents got their shit together well enough to satisfy social services. The couple were both middle management in oil business, high enough in the food chain to stay out of the oil towns like Fort McMurry, still low enough that they couldn't afford to spend the winter months golfing in the Arizona desert. At the time, Arthur didn’t know any of this. Hiding in their closet in a game of hide-and-seek with the family's daughter who had forgotten about him to go flirt with the paper boy, he judged their wealth by the glide of silk ties through his fingers as he carefully knotted it over his t-shirt, by the lingering sent of cologne on the suit coat he pulled on next. The shiny black shoes were too big for him, but he laced them as tight as they'd go anyway, and stood in front of the mirror, trying to pretend away the stains on his black jeans and the way the sleeves of the coat hung down over his fingertips.

But something was wrong. Thoughtfully he unlatched the wife's jewellery box. Most of what was inside was gaudy and chunky, but near the bottom were a pair of clip-on silver studs, battered and tarnished from neglect. He fitted them onto his earlobes, and clomped back over to the mirror, but his left shoe fell off on the way. Frowning, he leaned down to grab it, and noticed the line of high-heels under the skirts and dresses. Eventually he found a pair without any silly bows or sparkles, in a quiet brown and with heels low enough that he could hide them from sight and pretend they weren’t there if he unfolded the cuffs of his jeans. The shoes were smaller, with a rounded toe and narrower build. Arthur looked in the mirror again, and liked what he saw.

Cobb finds him sitting on the edge of the back deck getting drenched a little while after the shouting from inside has faded away. Arthur's heart has stopped beating so fiercely, and he's fairly certain the rain has cooled the rush of blood to his face. He's never made that connection before, barely remembers that foster home and the closet of cheap nineties business wear, never really linked it in with the following ten, fifteen ears of his life. It's unsettling and he finds himself resenting Phillipa for bringing the memories back, and Cobb for making a big deal out of it.

"Thanks for the support back there," he says, the words a reprimand but the tone making them a joke. Arthur exhales steadily and swipes his forearm across his face to dislodge the rainwater.

"Who won?"

Cobb leans against the railing, hands hanging limp at his sides. "I don't know. I don't think anyone won in that conversation, Jesus. She-- this isn't just about the clothes."

"yeah," Arthur agrees, defeated. "There're probably books or websites or something, I'll put together a list."

He can see Cobb resist the urge to assure Arthur he can do it himself, which is in equal his university-bred need to fact check his own work as it is his discomfort with Arthur's ingrained tendency to do this sort of thing for him. But Cobb learned a long time ago that Arthur is a far better researcher than he can ever hope to be and, more recently, that it settles Arthur to do things for him. Arthur doesn't mention that he's already got a fair idea of where to look and what he's looking for. Not yet.

They go back inside and Arthur helps sort out the dresses and skirts into a separate bag that Cobb shoves on the top shelf of the laundry room closet, just in case. Arthur doesn't bother telling him that there likely won't ever be the sort of 'just in case' that he's hoping for. Dinner is an awkwardly sullen affair wherein Phillipa pushes her food around on her plate without actually eating any of it and Arthur forces down neatly cut bites of food mechanically and tries not to look at her. James tells a long rambling story about the neighbours who let him help paint their fence, and Cobb attempts to drag Arthur or Phillipa into a conversation to cut James' increasingly implausible narrative off with no real success. Arthur's being immature, he knows it, and he knows he's forcing himself prematurely into a conversation that he doesn't want to have, but this resurgence of memory and emotion has left him hunkered down inside his own head, instinctively reticent in dealing with the outside world in his heightened state of self-awareness. He's never really envied Eames before, but now he'd give anything to be able to slip into another person, to push the attention off of him and on to someone else.

Dom waits until the kids have gone to bed to confront him, which is almost worse because there're no convenient diversions. Arthur's on the sofa with his laptop and a couple files, sorting out the basics for a job he's been hired to run in Vegas -- simple and over-paying, just him and an architect and some stupid asshole with gambling debts to the wrong people. Dom settles down beside him, respectfully distant as to not disrupt Arthur's papers. He brushes a hand over Arthur's upper arm. "Can we talk?"

Arthur slumps fractionally, and starts closing documents. Dom waits patiently, familiar with Arthur's inability to leave a project open and in-progress without reaching some sort of stopping point. Finally Arthur sets everything on the coffee table in a neat stack and turns to face Dom, one leg curling up under him on the rough fabric of the sofa cushion. "What's up?"

"You seem quiet tonight, is all." He keeps his tone light, casual, and Arthur knows that at this point Dom will still back off if Arthur asks him to.

He picks his words carefully. "I was just... thinking about Phillipa."

Dom keeps watching him. "Yeah. I was distracted at the time, but you got out of there pretty quickly once that discussion started."

Arthur's lips curl a tiny bit. "Is that what we're calling it? If that's what we're classifying as discussions now I think you owe Eames and I an apology for the many times you snapped at us for having "discussions"."

Dom rolls his eyes. Arthur considers limiting his Skype sessions with Ariadne-- he's supposed to be teaching her, not the other way around. "Ok, ok. Possibly we could have both handled that better."

"Far be it for me to say that this family tends to be a bit high-strung..."

Dom glances down in acknowledging amusement. "Yeah yeah. Now stop trying to change the subject."

"It just brought up some unexpected memories."

"They must be pretty important to evoke that kind of reaction from you. Can I ask what they are?"

Arthur considers, then shakes his head. "Not right now. What did Phillipa say after I left?"

Dom sighs. "That she didn't want to look like a girl because the boys in her class make fun of her and won't let her play with them, and the teachers insist on her using the princess colouring books instead of the super-hero ones. It seems like peer pressure, honestly. And maybe some teachers who are a little behind the times. I'm betting it passes in a month or two."

Arthur doesn't catch the bitter little huff of amusement in time, and Dom's gaze is locked back on him, bright and observant. Arthur goes for a bit of directness. "Look at her hair, Dom. And how upset she got earlier? This isn't about a colouring book."

"Okay," he says, calm and open. "What do you think it's about? You said you were gonna do some research."

Arthur clenches his teeth to keep the words in. He tucks his arms around himself, then just as quickly drops them back to his lap. "Not yet, ok? I don't want to bias things if I'm wrong." By which he means he needs to have a strategy for approaching the conversation about himself that will eventually come up if he's right about Phillipa.

"Ok," Dom says again. "Not yet." He studies Arthur for another moment, making no effort to disguise his gaze as anything other than assessing, then rolls up to his feet, scooping his empty water glass as he passes the end table. "I'm going to head upstairs, maybe read for a while before bed."

Arthur relaxes, folding both legs out and grabbing his laptop from the table to power it back on. "Ok. I'll be up in a while, just got to hunt down some property taxation records."

 

Phillipa asks Arthur to take her shopping by the end of the week, and he's not surprised when she tentatively starts drifting into the boys' section. He remembers the sneaking around, the surreptitious glances to make sure no one's paying too much attention.

He hit the queer scene in painted-on-jeans and too much eyeliner, drifting away from a silent house and constantly-absent parents into the clingy, drug-fuelled embrace of queer street youth. He had enough money in his savings account and a roof over his head when he wanted it, which fuelled his determination to get as far away from the grunge movement as possible. His jeans and purposely-too-small t-shirts were brand name, his eyeliner never saw the inside of a cheap drugstore, he never had to bum a cigarette. He went to the bars expecting that he'd get in on his pretty face, head rife with stories of men rejected in order to keep the clientele of the bars attractive. The truth was the bouncers saw a kid who could pass for eighteen and clearly had money to burn and they never bothered checking ID.

He spent a good six months letting guys buy him drinks, trading hand jobs in the washrooms, grinding on the dance floor before the comments started to get to be too much. 'Pretty boy,' guys called him, 'Another fucking twink,' the 30-year-old businessmen sniped from behind their martinis. 'Such a girly boy,' straight girls cooed at him. He wanted to punch all of them. He's not girly, not feminine. 'Not a boy, either,' a voice in his head muttered, but he ignored it.

He started going to queer youth groups, activist meetings, spent more time standing outside the bars smoking than he did inside. That's where he met the girls, angry and fierce and kissing in the streets under pride flags even as they spit on the older women and their butch and femme presentations and shyed away from the word 'feminist' like it was a ticking bomb. He skipped his high school classes to sit in on Women's Studies lectures at the university, ignored the occasional family dinner to stand out on the street handing out HIV information pamphlets, started responding to men's leers at the gay bars with lectures on objectification instead of offers of a blow job.

He became the token boy in his social circle, and they paraded him around like a mascot who was smart enough and young enough to remain cute instead of a threat. It still wasn't right, but it was getting better.

Phillipa leaves the store wearing her new sneakers bought from the boys' department and in Arthur's opinion no different to her old ones. She's a little shy when they get home and Dom asks to see what they've bought, but eventually she can't resist her pride as she holds up a bright red Superman shirt and a black and blue striped sweater, the three pairs of baggy shorts that Arthur can barely bring himself to look at (he is the only person in the Cobb household who actually has an appreciation for fashion and quality and it's a really fucking hard burden to bear sometimes), and even her new school notebooks and pencil case with no hint of pink or flowers anywhere on them. At the bottom of the shopping bag there's a multi-pack of chapstick, flavours like 'Sweetheart Strawberry' and 'Whacky Blue Raspberry' blaring in fucking Copperplate from the cardboard. Dom's eyebrows go up. Arthur shrugs-- Phillipa had seemed just as excited about the chapstick as anything else, and he wasn't going to question her on it.

Dom tells Phillipa to go put her things away, glances in to make sure that James is still engrossed in his movie, then catches Arthur's hand and leads him gently into the living room. Apparently they're having this conversation now, with the two of them tucked together on the sofa, late-afternoon sunlight cutting a honey-gold path across the dusty hardwood, Dom rubbing circles in the palm of Arthur’s hand with his thumb and smiling with the sort of honest affection and innocence that he shouldn’t still possess.

"Ok, Arthur," he says, comfortable and somehow soothing without coming across condescending. "Tell me what you think this is all about, and why it upsets you. I promise I've got a bottle of red breathing in the kitchen for when we're done."

Dom is lucky he didn’t phrase it as a question, Arthur thinks, because if he'd asked Arthur would've still managed to be just enough on edge to punch him in the face for so clearly trying to fucking coddle him into the conversation like a hysterical teenager in her therapist’s office. Arthur lets himself have one visible deep breath then wrestles a mask of confidence into place.

"How much do you know about transgender individuals?"

Dom nods slightly, internal confirmation. "The basics, I guess? Born in the wrong body, right?"

Arthur flinches slightly, but continues. "Something like that, yeah. It's classified as a disorder in the DSM, but that's pretty contentious for obvious reasons. I'm not saying Phillipa's trans, but I'd say it's a pretty strong possibility."

"How would we know?"

Arthur shakes his head quickly. "Wait for her to tell us. Something like telling us she wants to be a boy, or that she is a boy."

"You think she'd come out and say it? Will she even understand that it's a possibility?"

Arthur shrugs. "I'm sure there are parenting blogs or books out there that can answer these questions for you better than I can. If you think it'd be better to bring it up with her, that's your call."

"And by you're sure you mean..." Dom smirks a little.

Arthur sighs. "I've already got a list, I'll email it."

Dom is quiet for a minute, obviously processing. "The chapstick," he says finally. "And all of her friends at school are girls. That doesn't really scream secretly a boy, does it?"

Arthur has enough restraint not to face palm, and the earnest confusion in Dom's words softens his instinctive response. "The dominant trans narrative is a bit outdated. If she is trans she's lucky in that she realized it young. That opens up a lot more doors, physically, than if she'd come out at sixteen or thirty. But not all trans people are going to fit the western traditions of male and female, just like most cis people don't fit those stereotypes."

Dom grins a bit. "Trust you to know all the appropriate lingo already."

"It's called research," Arthur retorts. When or why that research happened isn't important.

Right now Dom doesn't need to know about Arthur's eighteenth birthday, when he'd been dragged out to buy a lottery ticket and his first legal drink which had turned into rather a lot of legal drinks and wound up with him huddled in the bed of a truck with his best friend at the time (Tasha, twenty-two-year-old self-proclaimed baby dyke just starting her Masters in sociology). he'd turned to her over the dregs of their shitty beer and said "I think I'm a girl."

The story is supposed to end one of two ways—she broke his nose and never spoke to him again or she embraced him and said she'll accept him no matter what. What did happen was a brisk rundown of all the ways he was going to have to change his appearance and mannerisms to start passing, a reminder to be careful not to intrude on 'women only' spaces unless invited, and three weeks of being forced to sit through documentaries and books filled with fifty-year-old trans women in outrageous dresses, talking in dramatic tones about how they had to move to a new city and cut off all ties with friends and family in order to finally begin their real lives. On the last day of week three Tasha took him to a drag show and introduced him to a group of the performers. Arthur thought it was a little like meeting royalty; he was in awe and amazed by the drag queens in their gleaming dresses and perfect make-up and overwhelming confidence, but he would never want to find himself in their place. That same night, in a fit of drunken melancholy he bought a bus ticket east, left a note for his parents and didn't stop until he hit Toronto. He got a job at an airline and rented a room with a busy accountant and her husband and decided that clearly he was not a girl, if he hated the experience so much he fled the province after three weeks.

He was in Paris by the time he turned twenty, because he is not very good at living any sort of quiet, monotonous lifestyle. He met Miles when he was lurking at the back of his Introductory Architecture course because he couldn't afford school but he was still eager to learn. Within a month Miles had hired him on as a researcher. He spent a lot of time in eastern Europe because the urban structure reminded him of home. He got free internet and library access at the universities, and tentatively started researching being trans again, on his own terms. It was a lot less intimidating, and Arthur could start to see a place for himself --herself?--, and he educated himself on some basic theory and cultural history. Looking back on some of the comments and thoughts he through out about the trans women Tasha showed him he felt more than a little ashamed of himself. He returned to Paris intent on taking some sort of step-- maybe beginning to use the proper pronouns in his head, buying some women's suit jackets. He mentioned to Miles that he was thinking of going for a scholarship to study urban planning, and Miles smiled and said "I'd like to show you something."

Arthur never dreams himself as a woman. He was terrified, the first time he went under, that he was going to manifest in a body that wasn’t his own and utterly lose the respect of Miles and his brilliant daughter, Mal, both accomplished dreamers already. Once it became clear that dreaming was going to be a primary component of his life, he forced any thoughts of being wrong as far down in his subconscious as they’d go for fear of accidentally letting something slip in a dream. By the time he was 27 and on the run with Dom, he never even thought about it.

Dom shifts on the sofa, the hand that's not wrapped around Arthur's moving to rest on Arthur's knee. "So that's half of it. Can we talk about why this is affecting you?"

"I-- There was a time, when I was young and stupid when I thought--" Arthur is legitimately surprised at the knot in his throat, the rush of blood in his ears, the lightheaded feeling as he mutters the words. "I thought that I might have been, um, in the wrong-- well, not exactly-- That there was a possibility I was supposed to be a woman, I guess. Which was a long time ago, you know what it's like when you're young."

Dom frowns, but his hands stay steady on Arthur. "That doesn't seem like the sort of thing to be a passing phase."

Arthur forces his shoulders to stay straight where they want to hunch in protectively. "I guess I'm just special."

"If I can ask, was it like what Phil is doing? Did you want to play with Barbies and wear dresses?"

Arthur wrinkles his nose. "No to both. I never really thought about gender until I was in my teens, until there were strict social expectations for boys and girls, and, well, you know." he jerks his chin down at himself. "Puberty. I was lucky to some extent, but it was still... uncomfortable."

"I'd imagine. What made you decide you weren't, well, wrong?"

Arthur shrugs. "A few things. Mostly I just got too busy to think about it, so I figured if I could dismiss it that easily I wasn't really trans."

"By busy you mean dreamshare."

"Yeah."

"Did you ever--"

"No, Jesus. Too much of a risk."

"That's a long phase," Dom says lightly. "Ten years?"

Arthur pulls his hand away. "I suppose. But now you know why it was a bit of a surprise when Phillipa started pushing gender barriers. I'll go send you that list if you'll pour the wine?"

Dom gets up and heads for the kitchen. "Yeah, sounds good."

"Hey," Arthur says just before he disappears around the corner. "Don't be too worried yet, ok? She could just be a tomboy."

He should've known that Dom wouldn't leave it alone.

Three weeks later, when Phillipa tells them over pancakes that she wants them to call her Phil all the time, Dom's only response is to ask her if her teacher is ok with it, or if he has to talk to her. Later that morning, once the kids are off to school, he asks, casual as can be over the laundry basket, "Did you ever come up with a name, if you were to have transitioned?"

Arthur becomes very invested in sorting the whites out. "No. It seemed like cheating. No one else gets to pick their name. And now it'd just feel like another fake identity. I've been so many people on paper that I wouldn't want to start fucking around with my internal sense of identity."

Dom hums an agreement, and turns back to the washing machine. It takes Arthur the rest of the day to realize that he'd not only provided reasoning for his past self, but for the current time as well. Dom's left a copy of Gender Trouble on the bedside table, and Arthur picks it up tentatively when he slips into bed, the familiar words welcoming him back even as he waffles on the doorstep.

***

Ariadne comes to visit at Thanksgiving. The kids' grandparents have already arrived, and Arthur rehashes his Thanksgiving rant happily when he picks Ariadne up from the airport.

"I mean, there's no point in buying plane tickets and eating a giant turkey dinner when you're just going to do it all again in a month for Christmas. There is a reasonable time for Thanksgiving and it's called the beginning of October."

Ariadne laughs at him and calls him domesticated and Arthur judges her choice in scarves and he thinks maybe he likes her more now that she's grown up a bit. He also expects her to be doing something brilliant and legal and safe with her life, which leaves him floundering a bit when she cheerfully informs him that she and Yusuf have been making a name for themselves in dreamshare across Africa.

"Cobb tells me nothing," he laments irritably. "How are you selling a chemist architect team? It's not exactly a common pair."

She grins. "But super useful. We're like every extractor's starter tool kit. You must know how much stress is cut down if you don't have to worry about what kind of drugs you're taking, or what world you'll get once you've taken them. A strong base leads to more focus on the actual job, less concern over whether the fundamentals are being handled correctly."

It's strange, watching Ariadne in her jeans and scarves and chipper, easy-going femininity as she outlines an excellent strategy within an illegal, cutthroat industry. Arthur remembers first meeting Mal, brilliant and lovely and commandingly powerful, and thinking that she was the quintessential femme fatal, well suited to the unearthly beauty and horrors of dreaming alike. Arthur admires them both. Now that the door's been cracked open the thoughts keep coming, and he knows that he would be the sort of woman who fit in far better with the men, who kept her hair short and her shoes practical and her slacks and dress shirts pristine. He tells himself with as much belief as he can muster that this fact would not make his identity invalid. It doesn't really work, but at least he's trying.

The kids are predictably shy around Ariadne at first, far more interested in dragging their grandmother out into the back yard to watch them play on the trampoline than in making forced conversation with a stranger. The three of them sit around the kitchen table drinking coffee, sharing stories about their ridiculous or terrible experiences while on the job because when it comes down to it they don't really have that much in common. Ariadne admits that she's fallen into Yusuf's trap of cute and doom and is the owner of three tabby kittens and yes, of course she has pictures, what kind of person do they think she is? Dom talks about the kids and about Saito's latest business successes, which naturally leads into Arthur searching for an ally in Ariadne in regards to just how goddamn unnerving it is that Cobb and Saito have been texting fucking constantly since the Fisher job and are apparently bffs now.

Phil sits beside Ariadne at dinner, and by the time the pumpkin pie is making the rounds all of her nerves have vanished and Ariadne is her new best friend. Arthur finds them in the family room later, hiding from dish duty, and Phil is curled up in the armchair with Ariadne and an tablet, showing her doubtlessly humiliating home videos.

"I'm showing her when we went surfing and daddy kept falling off," Phil announces happily. Arthur covers his mouth to hide his grin.

"I love my life," Ariadne says contentedly. Arthur can see years and years of blackmail in Dom's future.

"You're pretty good, though," Ariadne tells Phil. "I think you might have a future professional surfer here, Arthur."

Before he can reply Phil is shaking her head and pulling the tablet closer to her. "No, no, I'm gonna be a dancer. Papi said he'd buy me lessons for Christmas."

Ariadne arches an eyebrow. Arthur shrugs. "I did Hip-hop when I was a kid," Ariadne offers. "What kind of dancer are you gonna be, Phil?"

"Like this," Phil announces. Arthur moves around to lean over the back of the chair. She's pulled up a video on YouTube, obviously taken on someone’s digital camera, shot, perhaps, by a friend or fellow dancer. The focus is on a young man in the back of a non-descript practice studio, black-clad body moving through a series of exercises on the bar that Arthur, who considers himself a pretty flexible person, is impressed by. It's clear he doesn't realize anyone's recording, making no attempt to look professional, constantly blowing hair out of his face and at one point falling out of pose to turn and flip off someone out-of-frame. He's slender and clearly well-muscled, and his movements all seem to flow into one another like he's constantly in motion, fluid and graceful. Arthur can see the appeal.

Ariadne hesitates, obviously caught off guard. "Have you shown your grandparents that this is what you want to do?" she asks.

Phil shakes her head. "Not yet, but lots of my friends are in dance already."

"Maybe you should show them anyway, just so they know," Ariadne says, forced cheerful. Arthur presses his lips together.

"Expecting more tutus, Ari?" Possibly it comes out more sharply than he intended, because she turns to look up at him defensively.

"I was a bit surprised, is all. Obviously she can do whatever she watts, I'm not judging."

"Sorry," he says, honestly. "I guess I'm a bit touchy."

"This has been going on for a while, has it?"

Phil clears her throat primly. "I'm right here."

Arthur snorts out a laugh, and ruffles Phil's hair. "Yes you are. That was rude of us."

Miles pokes his head in from the kitchen. "Dishes don't wash themselves, you three."

***

The warehouse is too hot. Arthur's been leaning over her laptop all day, researching, and there's a bead of sweat meandering down her spine under her dress shirt. Her suit coat is hanging on the back of her chair, a sacrifice to the temperature. Her hair won't stay out of her face, too short to tie back but just long enough to still be inconvenient. The job is simple but requires a lot of prep work, she's getting really sick of stale coffee, left to sit too long while she loses herself in spreadsheets.

"Did you get the names?" Cobb asks, crossing to stand over her desk. She holds out a folder.

"Right here." He takes the folder and she pushes her chair back, stretching arms above her head. There's the remnants of a cobweb clinging to her left pant leg and when she drops her arms back down the wire of her bra digs in to her side viciously.

"The client wants an update," Cobb says.

Arthur glares. "Does he also want my fist in his face? Is Ariadne done with the first level? Show him that."

"I don't know," Cobb says lightly. "I thought you might've spoken to her."

Arthur shrugs. "Haven’t seen her since yesterday, same as you. Eames dragged me off to a poker game in the sort of place where your hand isn't as important as how many bullets you've got to back it up. Didn't really seem like Ari's cup of tea."

"Yeah, guess not. Keep working," Cobb says, and wanders off. Arthur returns to her laptop, and it seems like no time at all has passed before Cobb's touching her shoulder, jacket on, briefcase in hand.

"Calling it a night?" she asks absently.

"Yeah. You want to get drinks?"

She's at a good saving point, so she closes everything up and swings her coat on. She reaches over to the far edge of the desk for her gun, and frowns. Something's off with the weapon, her grip feeling unfamiliar and awkward.

"Did someone switch my gun?" she demands, but she can already tell they haven't, it's her gun, familiar to her gaze but strange in her hand. She stares down at her hand, slender and calloused, nails well manicured, though not polished, thin wrists leading to well-muscled forearms under the sleeves of her shirt. There's something wrong, but she can't put her finger on what it is.

"Arthur?" Cobb asks evenly.

"Yeah. Yeah. What's--" She thinks back, tries to pin down the details of the job their on, things that should be easily brought to mind considering she's spent days reading about it, but everything is foggy and vague. "are we dreaming? What the fuck, Cob?"

"Why do you say that?" he asks mildly.

"I don't know, why are we dreaming the world's most average job?" She pulls her die from her pocket and rolls it on the desk three times fast. Four. Two. Five. "What the hell, Dom?"

"What seems off to you, Arthur?"

"The fact that I don't have a clue what we're working on or what city we're in, maybe?"

"Ok. That's all?"

"Don't be that guy, Dom. I'm not a mark, stop leading me. What am I missing?"

"Think back to getting here. We talked about this before we went under."

Arthur frowns, then looks down at her gun again and-- oh. Well. She shoots herself in the head without a second thought and is yanking the needle out of her arm and stumbling off the bed before she's even got her eyes open.

"Arthur?" Ariadne asks from where she's been keeping an eye on them while they dreamt. "is everything alright?"

"No. Yes. Fuck." She fumbles in the bedside table drawer, grabbing the first passport she touches and the stack of bills and credit card that go along with it. "Tell Cobb I'll be back. I just.. need some air. and not to see his face for a while."

"Arthur," Ariadne says sharply. "Hey, wait a minute." Dom's waking up behind her, and Arthur absolutely can not be in the same room as him once he comes to fully. She's out of the front door before she realizes she doesn't have any car keys. She jogs down the sidewalks and out of the subdivision onto the main road and gets on the first bus she comes across. It takes her a few hours, but eventually she gets to LAX and on a redeye to Gatwick.

She'd forgotten. Dom had asked if they could go under together while their were people around to occupy the children, and Ariadne had volunteered Yusuf’s newest Somnacin blend, meant to leave the dreamer more open to the suggestions of their own subconscious while reducing the effects that other dreamers could have on the primary dreamer's dream. Which, now that Arthur thinks about it, was really fucking convenient timing. Dom had asked Arthur if he could maybe show him some of his experiences around her gender from her younger years, and Arthur, feeling confident and a little daring had agreed. What she forgot --what they all forget from time to time-- is that in amongst Dom the widower and Dom the father and Dom the crazy liability there is Dom the world’s best and most creative extractor. And also Dom the asshole. Because the dream had been the most dangerous kind; it had been a dream so mundane and unremarkable that she'd had no reason to suspect its reality. The idea of her gender had been implanted over the last months, and the somnacin coaxed her subconscious that little bit further along. She remembers the job with the oppressive heat from Jo'berg, and the poker game with Eames from Ankara. Dom had provided the basics, and her mind had unhesitatingly filled in the details. She'd been open and calm initially going under, knowing that the only other person in her dream would be Dom and that she could trust him, that he had her best interests at heart. From that point on all he'd had to do was stand there and offer an ordinary situation to play off of and she'd fucking torn herself in half, let all the bits of her spill out in front of his gentle, casually observant gaze. She doesn't get drunk on tiny airplane bottles of alcohol, but it's a close thing.

What she really wants to do is hide in the back of a pub and drink away the afternoon until she can stop thinking, but she's still got a touch of self-preservation instinct, so she takes the tube out to Richmond and knocks on the door of Eames' flat until he yanks it open dressed in paisley boxers, with pillow creases still prominent across his cheek and doing a piss poor job of hiding his gun behind the doorframe. "Alright, Arthur?"

"I woke you up." She stares at him, incredulous. "You're a grown man, Eames, and it is the middle of the afternoon."

"You can't tell me you're surprised, darling. Come in before my neighbours start getting ideas that I'm an enforcer for the mafia again."

"Again?"

He turns away from the door and heads deeper into the flat, calling over his shoulder. "There was an incident with some blokes and a submachine gun down from Manchester. I don't want to talk about it."

She swings the door shut behind her and steps around where he's turning on the kettle to splash her face with water from the sink. The product has started giving up on her hair, and she sticks her head under the tap and finger combs the resultant dripping mess, letting it fall where it will.

"Getting off a job?" Eames asks, taking down mugs from the shelf above the kettle.

"Something like that."

"Oh? Trouble in paradise then, is it?"

"I've spent the last too many hours on public transportation and I need to be drunk. What more do you need to know?"

"Well, if I should be worried about armed gunmen hunting you down, for one."

"I'm not coming off a job."

Eames snorts. "That's not what I asked."

"He's a bastard, not psychotic, for fucks sake."

He snorts. "Whatever puts you to sleep at night."

"I'm not going to talk about this with you. Do you want to join me or not?"

"Sit and have some tea first, and eat something if you can manage it. I've got to shower and take a call from Tokyo in an hour, but I promise I'll enable your alcoholism once that's done."

She spends an uncomfortable hour and a half on his sofa trying and failing to force her anger at Cobb not to turn in to guilt. He takes her to a neighbourhood pub and they split an order of chips and cheese and she works her way through three glasses of scotch in half an hour, after which she realizes that having her inevitable breakdown in public will be really fucking humiliating, so they go back to Eames' flat where he pulls out a bottle of Hendrix along with a bottle of tonic and a cucumber, setting it all out on the coffee table and sprawling back on the sofa, socked feet sticking up in the air over the end.

By seven o'clock she's started babbling and it's terrible. "I can't explain what happened," she says carefully. "And stop me if I start doing so later, because I will legitimately regret it. But... I just ran out of the house. we were dreaming and I *asked* him to, I said it was ok, and he fucking believed me because he's an asshole, and I ran and he's not even texted me, he didn't even try to come after me."

"Generally giving chase to a fleeing loved one is only practical in films."

"But-- he fucking tracked me down in Vancouver. He came and found me and told me he was bringing me home because I was his and-- what fucking sort of person says that? What sort of person am I that I liked it? That it was the first time I felt fucking secure and safe and valued for as long as I can remember? Jesus."

"I could say something about your issues with authority figures--"

"And I could punch you in the face."

"Right. But honestly, darling, is there any part of you that wants Cobb to track you down right now?"

Arthur cringes. "Christ, no."

Eames folds his hands over his stomach and nods. Possibly it's supposed to come across wise but just winds up bringing to mind a bobble head. "As much as it pains me to say it, Cobb's a brilliant extractor when he's not round the bend. It's his job to understand people, to figure out what drives them, learn their hopes and dreams and fears and all that rot."

"Thought that was your claim to fame?"

Eames frowns slightly. "There're a few fundamental differences, actually, I'll explain when we're sober. But don't you think that just maybe someone who makes a living out of understanding complete strangers would be able to figure out what his significant other needs?"

"Assuming you know what someone needs is a terrible life strategy," Arthur cuts in helpfully.

Eames' head thunks back against the sofa. "You're impossible, you know that? All I'm saying is maybe you should have a bit more faith in Cobb. And stop with the bloody self-recrimination about the state of your relationship, just because you happen to like it when he tells you what to do doesn't mean your weak or perverted, I can't believe I need to give you this pep talk."

Arthur sighs. "I do have a passing familiarity with the bdsm scene, thank you. And it's not like that. We're not-- kinky."

Eames whimpers a little, hands coming up to cover his face. "Please stop, I don't ever want to think of Cobb and sex together-- I said you should have faith in Cobb, didn't I? What has my life come to, Arthur, I've just said that someone should have faith in Dominic Cobb, oh Jesus Christ."

Arthur ignores his babbling, talking aloud as she tries to work through her thoughts in the gin fogged marsh of her brain. "I mean, I guess we could be kinky, it's never really, come-- been mentioned. But it's not about sex."

"Stop, I beg you. Although," and Eames' hands fall away so that he can roll onto his side and stare at Arthur, "Does he squint when he comes? It's just, I have this horrible mental image and I don't understand how anyone could ever get off on that or take him seriously-- I don't actually want to know, don't answer that, I just had this thought and I sometimes verbalize things without thinking through the full repercussions. I absolutely do not want to know about Cobb's orgasm face. Or anything else regarding his sexual habits-- Jesus, now I'm sounding like a nature documentary."

Arthur stares at the carpet fibres under her hand for a little while, waiting for Eames to drink away the trauma. She imagines saying it, looking over at him and just blurting it out. 'I'm a woman.' Her mind circles through every conceivable reaction, from the horrifically violent to the sickeningly fluffy. And then she thinks of Dom, the way her subconscious betrayed her secret before she was ready. She thinks about surgery and name changes and rumours and awkward questions and forced pronouns and everyone from her arms dealer of choice to James’ pre-school teacher, and she thinks of failing to pass and constantly being noticed and she has to take a minute to breathe, to force down the bile in the back of her throat. But after all that she knows just as fiercely that she can't keep on with her few close friends, colleagues, (family?) thinking she's a man. She thinks of the freedom to make small changes, at least, the tiny things that most people wouldn't think of, imagines giving in to marketing and buying women's shampoo, women's body wash, perfume instead of cologne, letting her hair grow a bit. And maybe later, she admits to herself finally. Maybe once her self-confidence grows, or once she gets a taste of what she's been ruthlessly repressing, she'll want more, want the hormones or the surgeries. But for now, she thinks, perhaps just a few people knowing on her terms will be a good start.

She pours the last of the gin into her glass and throws it down in one long swallow. "Eames," she says sharply. He meets her gaze. "I'm a woman."

Eames' eyebrows inch upwards. "I think you should clarify that statement a little, love."

So she does, and he listens and asks a couple questions and is really very accepting and perhaps a little awkward at such a personal confession coming from someone he sees maybe once a year, but all around when Arthur finally passes out in his guest bedroom she's reasonably content.

The feeling stays with her when she wakes up, through vomiting out her insides, down the street to Boots to pick up a few essential toiletries and finally into the cafe where Eames has texted her to meet for breakfast. He smiles at her when she sits down across from him, and she can't help but return a little grin of her own.

"Their sausage rolls are best for hangovers," he informs her with the voice of experience.

She sighs. "What part of kosher is difficult for you to understand?"

He waves dismissively. "fine, fine. Scotch pancakes then, maybe they'll soak up all the booze. What I'm really trying to say is avoid anything that requires the cook to cook an egg."

"I think I'll head back stateside tonight," she says once the coffee's arrived. "If for no other reason than I need better clothes." She's wearing a pair of Eames' jeans, belted tightly around her waste and still too baggy with a well-worn tee-shirt for a band she's never heard of. It's driving her fucking insane.

Eames tilts his head. "Could go shopping. It's London, darling, shouldn't be too difficult to find clothing that suits even your ever so exacting tastes."

She's on the verge of a witty retort when the idea actually catches her attention, as does the serious gleam behind Eames' teasing smirk. It's like now that the flood gates are open, the water isn't ever going to stop and instead of hunkering down and waiting to drown she's floating along on the rush, buoyant and easy.

She books her flight for that evening over the phone while they walk to the nearest tube station, and then she proceeds to drag Eames all over central London while she picks out clothes. She's not wasteful or impulsive by nature, so by the end of the day she's only got one bag while Eames has at least three, all stuffed with hideously patterned shirts and ties and a couple God awful knickknacks for his flat. Arthur was careful in her purchases, silk dress shirts that highlight her narrow waist in muted colours, jackets with a slightly altered fit or a bit more flare in the design. Nothing of note unless one were to be looking for it, and even then still neutral enough as to not arouse curiosity. At one point Eames wanders out of a side street, cigarette clenched between his teeth and shoves a pack of tight black silk briefs into her bag. she glares at him, but he just grins. "If you don't know why those might come in handy I'm sure the internet will explain." She does not actually facepalm, but it's a close call.

She gets back on the plane with a carry-on and Eames' too-cheery well wishes and she even manages to sleep for most of the flight. It's late when she gets back, so she grabs a taxi and settles in for the familiar battle against LA traffic. Her phone rings as soon as she turns it on, and the caller ID says Saito. She hits ignore. And then she spends five minutes glancing around in paranoia, waiting for a bullet to dart in through the open window. Dom really needs less terrifying friends.

Everyone's in bed when she lets herself in, and she forgoes showering off the airplane to preserve the quiet. the sheets of their bed are cold, night time breezes from the open window keeping the bedroom brisk. It feels like autumn, still, drier than England but still reasonably warm, and incongruously she finds herself longing for a proper winter snowfall, blistering cold and all. Dom rolls over when she tucks herself against him, blinking sleepy eyes as his vision adjusts to the dark.

"Hey," he says softly, still sleep muzzy.

"Hi." She tucks her freezing feet against his shins and he makes an undignified squeaking sound in the back of his throat. "Sorry I left without explaining."

"It's fine. Of course, it's always fine, Arthur."

Which... yeah, she thinks somewhere in the back of her head, maybe they can talk about that, too. But for now she knows what he wants to know, and she's practically vibrating with the need to tell him, the fear that she'll lose her nerve still lingering over her shoulder. But Dom is barely awake, and she wants them to have this conversation in the light and clarity of day, where he can't misunderstand and she can't hide and everything will be very, unbreakably real.

"You want to talk about it?" he asks.

"In the morning. Go back to sleep."

He fumbles around under the blankets until he finds her hand, loosely linking there fingers together. She doesn't expect to fall asleep, still running off of her rest on the flight, but jetlag is uncompromising in its demands and she drifts off within the hour.

The next morning Ariadne takes the kids to the park, and Arthur explains everything as best she can to Dom over late morning coffee on the back deck. She reiterates out loud what she'd figured out drunk on Eames' living room floor, tells him that for the moment she's not ready for any big changes, isn't comfortable with any sort of attention. She admits that just having him know is big, that maybe she'd like to try dreaming again without the panic attack. "Pronouns, probably soon," she says, and "I'd like to do something about facial hair."

Dom smiles and nods and tells her that he loves her and he supports her and he's not surprised because he's got the ego of a good extractor, there's no doubt about that.

A week passes. She comes close to telling Ariadne a few times, but never manages it and then she's gone on a flight to Kenya and the chance is lost. Phil announces that she wants to wear scarves like Ariadne does. Dom doesn't bat an eye.

He comes into their bathroom where Arthur is perched on the edge of the tub trying to shave her legs without bleeding to death the morning after Ariadne's flight departs. "Did Miles tell you he agreed to get Phil dance lessons for Christmas?"

Arthur shrugs. "Yeah."

Dom sighs. "There's already soccer and choir and skating, this is ridiculous. And James wants horseback riding lessons now, apparently. Where are we supposed to find a stable in Las Angeles?"

Arthur blinks. "...Anywhere? There's got to be one near by."

Dom bangs his head back against the wall.

"Has Phil shown you what kind of dance she wants to do?" Arthur asks carefully.

"Yeah. it's fine, Miles says we can find her something that'll work. No dresses."

"Has she said anything more to you about that sort of thing?"

Dom shrugs, scratches the back of his neck, glances down. "I might have asked her a couple things," he admits. Arthur waits, projecting non-judgemental vibes as hard as she can because it's not her place to tell Dom how to parent his kids. "She was pretty upset, actually. I maybe should've left it alone, but I was worried. I didn't want her to feel like she couldn't tell me things."

"Wow. Your subtlety, I can't even handle it."

He snorts. "Sorry, sorry. That wasn't meant as a jab at you. Anyway, I asked her if she thought she was a boy. She was pretty fierce about that 'no'. So I start saying how I just wanted to make sure, because some girls aren't really girls at all, and some girls just like different stuff, and I wanted her to know that whatever she felt like, that was ok. And she looks at me and says 'there's other girls who aren't girls?' and I guess she's.... neither, from what she's explained to me."

Arthur nods. "Don't worry about it, she's young. When puberty hits she'll be able to make a more informed choice, anyway."

Dom shrugs. "Or she'll just not choose either."

"You've been doing a lot of reading, haven't you?"

Dom grins sheepishly. "So much reading."

Arthur rinses her legs and turns to face him directly. "No, you're right. She might not identify as a boy or a girl. I guess I'm just a little leery around concepts of androgyny and genderqueer because by a lot of their definitions, they'd want to slot me in to one of the in between labels. And I'm... not. I've never felt like I wasn't either gender. Been in denial, confused, sure. But I'm a woman, and even if I ever go for full medical transition I'm not going to start wearing dresses and heels, or want to participate in 'girls' night out' with Ariadne or whatever it is that people assume of a woman. And it frustrates me that if I were a ciswoman, I could still not want all those things and never have my gender brought into question, but because I happen to be trans people want to call me out for being fake, or assign me some new fancy gender label."

Dom stares. "I think that's the most you've ever said about your gender in one go."

Arthur shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "Well. It's been a thing I've had to think about a lot over the years. But I won't bias Phil to pick a side, I promise."

Dom grins. "I've got a book on parenting gender creative kids. We can read it together."

"If there are discussion questions I quit," Arthur warns him dubiously. Dom chuckles shortly, and pushes off the wall to stand close in front of her. His hand comes up, fingers pushing up through her damp hair to cradle the back of her head.

"I have to go rescue the muffins before they burn," he says, punctuating each word with quick, barely there kisses. "But I just want you to know that I love you. Since I don't think I've mentioned that today."

She laughs into his next, deeper kiss. "Dominic, we've talked about watching the rom-coms that the babysitter PVRs."

He sighs melodramatically. "I see how it is, I try to be romantic and I get shot down."

She nips his bottom lip then pushes him away. "Go, before the house burns down."

He tilts his head. "You do know that over-cooking something usually doesn't result in fire damage?"

She flicks him with the end of the towel and he hops out of range, swinging the bathroom door half shut behind him. It's domestic and normal and for the moment, it's comfortable rather than stifling. And most of all, she realizes, it's the same. She's come out, she's told Dom a massive secret and he still respects her and loves her and she's still his, and all of that is ok and good and free to change or grow in the future. Which is, if she's being entirely honest, more than she's ever let herself hope for. As she walks out of the bathroom she remembers Eames' telling her to 'dream a little bigger', which basically makes her want to punch him in the face for intruding on her moment of contentment and happiness, but remains good advice nonetheless.  



End file.
